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The Museum’s Collections document the fate of Holocaust victims, survivors, rescuers, liberators, and others through artifacts, documents, photos, films, books, personal stories, and more. Search below to view digital records and find material that you can access at our library and at the Shapell Center.

Heinrich Hoffmann (1885-1957), German photographer and Nazi propagandist. The son and nephew of photographers, he worked in the Hoppé studio in London before setting up in Munich as a portraitist and photojournalist. His photograph of cheering crowds on 2 August 1914 unwittingly captured the young Adolf Hitler, a fact which would later benefit Hoffmann's career. Drifting to the far right after the First World War and revolutionary events in Bavaria, he joined the Nazi Party in 1920 and convinced an initially camera-shy Hitler of photography's political value. (The relationship was cemented by Hitler's liaison, from 1930, with Hoffmann's assistant Eva Braun.) After 1933 his virtual monopoly of Hitler photographs, as ‘the man who sees the Führer for us’, made him one of the Third Reich's major profiteers. His scenes of carefully constructed intimacy, presenting his master, especially in the regime's early years, as a clean-living, nature-loving man of the people, were massively disseminated. After 1945, though claiming to have been a mere chronicler of events, he was fined and imprisoned. His extensive photo archive survives.

Stereoscopic glasses included to view the 120 stereoscopic (double imaged) photographs accompanying the Nazi propaganda book, Grossdeutschlands Wiedergeburt [Great Rebirth of Germany]. The book and photographs deal with Hitler's conquest of Austria; text written by Karl Bartz, forward by Hermann Goerring and photographs taken by Heinrich Hoffman; published by the NSDAP.

Propaganda book containing stereo-optic glasses and 120 double imaged photographs to be viewed with the glasses. The book and photographs deal with Hitler's conquest of Austria; text written by Karl Bartz, forward by Hermann Goerring and photographs taken by Heinrich Hoffman; published by the NSDAP.

Learn about over 1,000 camps and ghettos in Volume I and II of this encyclopedia, which are available as a free PDF download. This reference provides text, photographs, charts, maps, and extensive indexes.